Tesla closes SolarCity deal for $2.1 billion

Tesla sees a future where you drive an electric car to your home, which is powered by a Tesla battery.

Tesla finalized its purchase of the solar energy company SolarCity on Monday morning. The deal, proposed earlier this year, was approved by shareholders at both companies last week and is worth $2.1 billion.

The move comes as no surprise to anyone who has kept an eye on Tesla in the last few years. Beyond the family connection—SolarCity was founded by Elon Musk’s cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive—Tesla as a company has been expanding its efforts to give consumers power over their electrical needs. If Musk dreams of a world where a battery can power your home, a solar energy company could go a long way toward helping keep those batteries charged.

While there was initially some controversy of the price of the sale when the final numbers were counted, 85 percent of shareholders voted for the SolarCity acquisition. That number is excluding the votes of Musk and other affiliated shareholders.

Tesla sees a future where you drive an electric car to your home, which is powered by a Tesla battery, which is recharged by the sun. Today’s sale could make that dream just a little bit closer to reality.

With the recent announcement that all Teslas produced by 2018 would be equipped with self-driving technology, we got to see a preview of what a computer-driven car would look like in the real world set to the Rolling Stones’s classic “Paint It Black.”